It all started with a TSR-80 in the late 80s. At that point it was more a toy than anything else. Since then, my interest in computers materialized with a PS/2 80 while I was in university in Mexico. Before I graduated I already had a couple of Macs, an LC-II and a Centris 660 AV, which was the catalyst to becoming an expert in both QuickTime and using the Mac. During my MBA, and later while attending the Vancouver Film School (VFS), I really learned to learn. Being a professional student at that point I started in the teaching realm as a Teaching Assistant, moving quickly to a part-time instructor position at VFS and soon after a full time position. Also while teaching, I've held a number of managerial positions for web development companies like Blastradius, Donat Group Inc. and later Rouxbe.com as well as working as a freelance consultant, mostly related to digital video deployment. My first tutorial for MPV was made soon afer the company started. Since then I've made a number of tutorials ranging from using OS X to advanced video compression techniques with Compressor and Adobe Media Encoder. Today I teach part time at the Art Institute of Vancouver, create courses for MPV and am always open for business as a freelancer.

Comments

Sep 09, 2011

G.F. Big

As I am not one of those people who need (or want) to be connected (or synchronized) via multiple gadgets, I doubt I will be off into the iCloud any time soon. When I am away from my computer, I am quite happy to be so. As for backing up data, I'll continue to make hard copy backups, and use Time Machine. Having all of my data on some other server seems to me to have the potential for serious abuse as far as privacy is concerned. Nope, not for me.

Well-written article from an author who I respect, as I've learned a lot from watching several of his videos. However, when it comes to this iCloud thing I don't agree with most of his premises.

The notion of putting the internet between one's files and one's computer is a giant step backwards in the evolution of computing. Nothing is faster, more convenient, or reliable as storing data on a hard drive connected directly to your computer. Sure, having a copy of important data stored on an FTP server or other remote server (which iCloud is not all that far removed from) is a great idea. But it's folly to think that data stored on a 3rd party server should be anyone's first choice for data storage. Let's just look at data transfer speed of the internet vs. a directly-connected hard drive:

At the present time, at least in the US, upload speeds are anywhere from 1/10 to 1/5 that of download speeds, making this system impractical for storing (i.e., uploading to the remote server -- iCloud) any kind of heavy-weight project files from apps like Logic, Photoshop, to name two. Compared to the speed of saving data to a hard drive, the concept of primary data storage in the cloud starts to seem just a bit silly.

The concept of a personal computer "morphing" into something else is not, as Francesco seems to suggest, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If someone wants this to occur they can make it so by way of subscribing to the model which he described. Otherwise, the concept can be entirely ignored without -- as I foresee it -- any downside whatsoever.

This whole cloud computing business goes way above and beyond what FTP does. Yes, at the most basic level, there is a remote file server that requires the right credentials. But that's where the similarities between iCloud and FTP. In fact, bandwidth is not a problem at all since the files would be local on the device using them. The magic comes from the transparency that you don't have to do anything to move and update your files on other devices.
As for security, only the apps that create the documents or that you give permission, can access the files on the cloud. So the security problem may not be someone else accessing your account, but rather loosing your iPhone and having no passcode on it.
I believe that for certain kinds of data, like calendars, contacts and other non-sensitive documents, one can start using the service and see how it works. I'm sure I'll move more of my files to iCloud once I clearly understands how it works.
Thanks for your comments. Keep them coming.

Hi
Am I missing something or did u not really respond to Sky's question. Little bitty files, ok we see that. I already store scripts and other text material on an online server where others can access them. But say you take off with ur laptop to Some Other Place, You shoot some footage and add it in to your Final Cut Project. A week later you get home, fire up your desktop machine and there is your Final Cut Project updated... But wait a minute. You shot 1.2 gig of footage. Surely quicker and easier to ethernet or firewire or whatever it across from your laptop. Or is this not what iCloud is for? I'm fascinated but confused and like the others here don't see the point for most of what I do.

One of the problems with iCloud and "cloud computing" in general, is that it's so simplistic and at the same time complex, that many people are having a hard time understanding its value. That's one of the arguments I make in my article. It will change the fundamental way we use computers and we won't even notice.

Let me see if I can give you an example: web based email. In "the old days" all of us had email programs that were hosted on one computer. In those days we didn't need to check our email every 5 minutes on the road. Webmail comes around, like Gmail, and then you're not locked to a single computer. In fact you don't even own the software. "It's in the cloud". That's kind of the idea with iCloud. You can create a document in one computer and instantly gets pushed to all your devices that share the same iCloud account.

Have you ever wanted to have synched a document to your phone so you could work with it on the go, but it's "locked up" in your computer in your office or at home? None of that for data created with applications that have support for iCloud. Even if you don't have your mobile device with you, you could go and download it from another computer by going to the iCloud site; giving you access to your work almost wherever you are.

Mixta, applications have to be written to push the data over to iCloud's servers. This means that Final Cut Pro X would not synch your media, at least on the current version. Take a look at Apple's page:
http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/documents.html
Numbers, Pages, Keynote and iPhoto, they all synch across Macs and iOS devices. As more developers add iCloud support to their applications, their files will be synched to iCloud automagically.

As you say, it's great for smaller files and things like photos, but larger media files you'd be safer backing them up using Time Machine.